Tag: whole30

Over the years I’ve heard a lot of different things about eating healthy but the main thing I continue to hear is it’s more expensive. Doing the Whole30 and cooking your own meals doesn’t have to be more expensive than what you are doing today. Prior to starting the Whole30 (Round 2) I’d gone back to all of my old ways of eating poorly. Looking at a typical day at the office the following is what I would often spend:

$3.25 to $6.50 coffee drink in the morning, ranged from an iced coffee to a Venti Salted Caramel Mocha

$3.00 bagel for Breakfast

$5.00 to $12.00 on Lunch, this often included the unhealthy meal I chose and a soda

$1.89 Soda and $1.50 Chips

I’m not proud of this but it’s the direction I was headed in just 21 days ago. Basically from when I got to work to when I got home I was spending between $14 and $25 in one day. Now don’t get me wrong some days I skipped the morning bagel and some days the chips or soda didn’t happen but generally I was spending $50 to $75 a week. My wife and I each had allotted $40 a week for lunches and coffee, kind of an allowance for adults. As you can see I was however going over this allowance.

With the Whole30 we generally take our lunches every day and spend $3.25 on coffee in the mornings. So $3.25 x 2 of us x 5 days = $32.50. We are spending less than half of what we were prior to the Whole30 during the weekdays.

Yes there are still groceries to buy and they do cost more than they did before. We are buying more fruits, vegetables and better meat and often shopping at Hy-Vee or Whole Foods. One thing about the Whole30 though is you don’t have a lot of food waste. Specifically you are bringing your own lunch, either something you made for that meal or in many cases leftovers from the night before. Also if you are like me and were eating far more calories than you should have been then you are likely still a little hungry on this program. It might even be the first time in two years that I’ve known what its like to be hungry and I think that’s OK. Nothing that is Whole30 approved goes bad in our household, we eat what we cook either that day or in the two to three days after. The food waste from leaving perfectly good leftovers in order to eat out doesn’t happen on this program.

Looking at Weekends we each love our coffee and so most weekends we were spending around $40 at Starbucks. That sounds like a lot but two coffee drinks, plus a muffin, a gluten free item for my wife, hot chocolate and cake pop for my son, apple squeeze for my daughter and multiply that by two days and it sure adds up quickly. Now with the Whole30 it’s more like $20 max on the weekends.

Last but not least is eating out. With a family of four if you can get out of a restaurant for under $30 to $40 it’s impressive. Likely if you add in a beer or cocktail each it gets closer to $50 or $60. Prior to the Whole30 we were eating out two to three times a week if you include dinners and lunches on the weekends. On this program you can’t have alcohol and although you can eat out it’s much easier to make your own meals at home. I’d say so far we’ve eaten out twice for dinner in 20 days and once each for lunch. So we are cooking our own meals, eating the leftovers and wasting less food because instead of forgetting meals in the fridge they are eaten the next day.

Depending on how you were doing things prior to the Whole30 I think even with that Whole Foods bill if you are smart with what you buy you can actually break even or save money doing the Whole30. In the long run if you develop a healthier lifestyle through this program you probably save money in other areas as a result, one example being healthcare.

Thanks for reading (Well if you’ve made it this far, this blog post might be a little long winded but well I had a lot to share). I hope if you are on the program it is going well and if you are considering it I would highly recommend it. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or reach out to me with any questions.

Day 5 Breakfast
– Sweet Potato, Apple and Pancetta Hash Twitter
I’ve included the link to the recipe in the title above and you can also follow her on Twitter here: @gutsybynature. This dish made for an excellent breakfast at the office and I can’t wait to have it again.

Put all ingredients in a Dutch oven and cook in the oven for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Also noted was slow cooker 6 – 8 hours but I haven’t tried that.

Plate and top with cilantro and avocado

Prep time 15 minutes, yields around 9 fajitas if not using as a soup.

You can remove the chicken and slice it up or just use it as is.

*This isn’t my recipe but I can’t find the source!

Day 15 Dinner
– Chocolate Chili from Well Fed. This may have been one of my favorite recipes thus far and it was super easy and relatively inexpensive to make. Modifications: We didn’t do the additional cup of water and I don’t think it needed it. 2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa instead on 1 and a half. 2 large onions instead of 2 medium ones. I chopped them up really fine and cooked them probably an additional 6 minutes or so.

Day 15 Appetizer
– Spicy Drumsticks
from Paleoleap. Due to some confusion I ended up with 20 fresh chicken legs from Whole Foods instead of the smaller drumsticks. I’d probably do the drumsticks next time but it was an excellent rub for chicken legs as well. Used the recipe here with 6 chicken legs instead of the 10 drumsticks. We ate this alongside the chili above.

According to my Instagram account it’s been 86 weeks since I wrapped up my 1st run at the #Whole30, a successful experience overall. Much of this is thanks to my wife Kristen for doing it with me and because she did the majority of cooking and prep work involved in the meals.

Some of the positives included

Dropped 27 Pounds in 30 days

Stopped drinking soda and eating junk food

Didn’t drink alcohol for 30 days

Didn’t eat any sugar other than those found in fruits for 30 days

Felt much better

Developed some better eating habits and found new recipes we continued to use post #Whole30

The Whole 30 was my no means any easy experience but overall I loved it. The food we ate tasted great, as noted above I felt better, I lost weight and changed a lot of my eating habits at least for a while. One of the more interesting experiences (captured in a pizza photo
in the collage amongst my healthier photos) was doing the Peddle Pub while on the Whole 30. In case you don’t know what that is it’s a moving pub that you peddle from bar to bar while also drinking as you peddle. I had signed up to do this before starting or even thinking about the Whole 30 and well I didn’t want to let my friends down. As a result I am probably one of very small group of people to do the Peddle Pub stone cold sober drinking my Coconut Water and eating grapes from a bag if I remember correctly. The last stop was a pizza place and at that point I was done.

Over the course of the 30 days my wife and I stuck to the rules of the Whole30 and there were days where it was easy and others where at least I know I struggled to stick with it.

Post Whole30

Once the Whole30 was over I gradually went back to drinking beer and eating the foods I’d missed like pizza, hamburgers, taco’s, etc. I went a while before drinking soda and eating Doritos again but gradually I went back to my old ways. Over the next year and a half (or 86 weeks as Instagram indicates) I managed to gain the 27 pounds back I’d lost and I lost back along with another 10 to 15 pounds on top of that. No I am not going to tell you where that puts me but let’s just say it’s frustrating to know where I could be if I’d at least kept up some of what I learned on the Whole30.

Whole30 Round 2

In December of 2015 my wife who has already been working hard to lose weight and has been successful at it suggested we do the Whole30 again. I jumped at the chance but like any change such as this you often pick a date and like most people I still wanted to indulge on New Year’s Eve. We chose 1/1/2016 as day one, rather than sitting around lazy on New Year’s Day we would start on a 30 day voyage into healthier eating habits for the 2nd time. As of this post we are on day 2, so yeah we have a long ways to go.

Things I plan to do differently this time

Add exercise to the Whole 30, last time we had a new baby and so I didn’t spend a lot of time exercising during the 30 days. I’d like to start with 2 to 3 days a week and see where it takes me.

Talk more about the experience with others. Last time I kept the Whole30 to Instagram where at the time I had very few followers and I’ve found that talking about something like this can drive you to be more successful.

Not going back to soda and junk food after the 30 days are over. Sure post Whole30 a Cherry Coke might still be an option if I attend a movie but I can’t let soda, Doritos and other foods like that back into my everyday life.

Be realistic after the 30 days are up, allow myself to enjoy the things I like but in moderation. Saying I will eat like I am going to eat for the next 30 days for the rest of my life is unrealistic. The Whole30 long term at least in my opinion is not sustainable.

I believe overall the Whole30 is a fantastic way to jump start yourself into a healthier lifestyle. It’s not a gimmick diet, it’s about changing the way you eat, really looking at what you are putting in your body. Having been overweight most of my life I’ve never been successful at losing weight and keeping it off. Recently having turned 38 I’ve realized that I can’t sustain this lifestyle and be here for my wife and two kids. Eventually the poor choices will get the best of me so it’s time to change. I’m hoping this will be the 1st of many positive posts on this subject.